Gibson guitar: an indicator of a deeper problem

  If you've been watching the way the feds are treating Gibson Guitar, you need to read this article over at National Review. 
  We've discussed the federal treatment of Gibson in previous posts here and here.
  Gibson's supposed offense? 
  The feds suspect that the Republican owned Gibson used rosewood and ebony illegally harvested, even though there is no evidence of such an offense. In fact:

In other words, a U.S. agency is enforcing foreign labor laws that the foreign government doesn’t even think were violated. 

  Gibson isn't the only business to be abused by the federal government.

  From NRO:

This abusive treatment of a legitimate business like Gibson is not an isolated incident. Small businesses have been similarly raided, and their officers imprisoned, for such minor offenses as importing lobster tails in plastic rather than cardboard (three men were given eight-year prison sentences) and sloppy labeling on imported orchids (the accused was given a 17-month sentence).

  This article goes on to discuss the various methods the feds use to get the smaller fish in a business to comply with whatever the feds demand:

If they choose to fight, they face the full wrath and fury of the feds. In the Gibson raids, the SWAT teams were deployed even though Gibson had offered its full cooperation to investigators. Such raids are increasingly used to intimidate citizens under suspicion. The orchid importer, a 65-year-old with Parkinson’s, was shoved against a wall by armed officers in flak jackets, frisked, and forced into a chair without explanation while his home was searched. 

  So the minor employee in the business is threatened with jail time for such minor unrelated infractions as "smoking a joint" on some other occasion. This way he or she complies with the thuggish behavior of the law enforcement officials involved.
  We respect our law enforcement officials; this is part of the conservative mindset.
  But there comes a time when citizens must fight the kind of creeping, invasive and vindictive behavior that is being exhibited in these cases.
  As the article at NRO indicates, enforcement of the law was meant to protect citizens from the destructive violent behavior of criminals.
  Not imprison an old guy for sloppy labeling on orchids.